OFF THE WIRE
By MARK WALKER
MILITARY: Marine 'anxious' as last Haditha trial set to unfoldMarine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, shown heading to a hearing in March 2010, faces war crime charges stemming from an incident in 2005 in Haditha, Iraq. HAYNE PALMOUR IV | North County Times file photo
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The horrors of the Iraq war are far from over for Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich.
The 31-year-old Camp Pendleton Marine is scheduled to go on trial next week, accused of nine counts of voluntary manslaughter for his role in the death of 24 Iraqis, including some women and children, after a roadside bombing in the city of Haditha in 2005.
Wuterich, who has remained on active duty in the years since the incident, said he's anxious over the trial that starts just days after the last U.S. troops pull out of Iraq.
"I really don't want to go to court and drag everyone through this," he said in an email response to questions.
Despite his nervousness, he said he's confident that a jury of combat-experienced Marines will exonerate him.
"I am looking forward to being able to present my case and help everyone understand what happened that day, and why I'm not guilty of the charges I'm facing," he said.
Wuterich's case is the last among those of eight Marines charged with crimes at Haditha in what is the largest prosecution arising from the 9-year-old war.
His case is rooted in how he led his squad in the slayings after the Nov. 19, 2005, bombing that killed one Marine and injured two others.
The carnage at Haditha has been mired in controversy since it came to worldwide attention in 2006.
The number of Iraqi civilian deaths initially was reported by the Marine Corps as 15, not 24. There also was no mention that unarmed women and children had been killed.
'Disgusted'
When the actual number of deaths, the makeup of the victims and the way they died became widely known, it spurred a worldwide outcry about the way the U.S. was conducting the war.
It also prompted recriminations in Congress, including a statement by the late Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha that the Marines had "killed in cold blood" as a result of the stresses that combat troops were under in Iraq.
Some alleged that the Marine Corps was guilty of covering up the "massacre at Haditha."
The deaths at Haditha ultimately would garner more attention than any of the more than 110,000 other Iraqi civilians killed during the conflict.
The incident also would lead the Marine Corps to increase training in battlefield ethics and alter the rules of engagement to essentially require that troops be certain that anyone they shoot represents an imminent threat.
"I think the public was mortified and disgusted because of what was being thrown around the airwaves," Wuterich said of the reporting about Haditha in 2006. "Massacre, cover-up, scandal, etc. As more information came out, opinions started to change, although almost everyone confused the Hamdania case with the Haditha case."
In the Hamdania case, a different group of eight troops from Camp Pendleton was convicted of charges related to kidnapping and killing an Iraqi man and staging the scene to make it look as if he was planting a roadside bomb.
The two cases emerged almost simultaneously, but were in no way related.
'Absolutely not guilty'
Haditha's role in the legacy of the war was cemented on Dec. 21, 2006. On that day, Marine Corps prosecutors at Camp Pendleton announced they were charging four officers with crimes such as dereliction of duty and making false statements for failing to investigate the killings and allegedly lying to investigators.
They also charged four enlisted men, including Wuterich, with murder.
Critics of the prosecution continue to contend the cases were brought solely because of politics and to appease the Iraqi government.
In the years since the charges were filed, all of the accused except Wuterich have been exonerated through a variety of legal rulings.
The only punitive measure in the multimillion-dollar government prosecution was a finding against the battalion commander at Haditha, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani.
An inquiry board ruled that Chessani's failure to order a full-scale investigation into the killings was "substandard." That amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist that allowed Chessani to retire as a lieutenant colonel and assured him full retirement benefits.
Wuterich's jury for the three- to four-week trial that will unfold in a base courtroom will include enlisted men composing at least one-third of the panel.
His attorneys are two former Marine Corps legal officers, Neal Puckett and Haytham Faraj.
"Frank is absolutely not guilty of the offenses he's been charged with, and we know that the evidence will show that," said Puckett, who is widely known in military circles for his work defending accused troops.
In addition to manslaughter, Wuterich is charged with two counts of assault, three counts of failing to follow regulations by violating the rules of engagement, and four counts involving reckless conduct and advising one of his men to lie to investigators.
Wuterich, who was on his first war-zone deployment, is specifically accused of shooting or ordering the shooting of at least nine of the victims.
Most of those deaths occurred as the Marines stormed a series of homes as they searched for the attackers who planted the roadside bomb. At least one of the deaths he is charged with involves the shooting of five men who drove up in a car immediately after the bomb was detonated.
Investigators later said none of those men were armed, none appeared on any list of suspected insurgents and they had no apparent tie to the incident.
The prosecutors, Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan and Maj. Nicholas Gannon, are as experienced as the defense team. Each has had key roles in many of the other Haditha and Hamdania prosecutions.
The witness list has more than four dozen names on it, including all the original defendants. No Iraqis are expected to testify, but prosecutors may show videotaped interviews of survivors.
Fewer than a dozen people are listed as defense witnesses, and it's unclear if Wuterich will testify.
"We won't make that decision until near the end of the trial," Puckett said. "It will depend on whether we think the jury members need to hear information that they haven't been provided by the other witnesses."
Justice delayed?
The years that have passed since the incident can only benefit Wuterich, according to Gary Solis, an expert in military law and war crimes and a former Camp Pendleton prosecutor.
"In six years, a lot of tangible evidence can be lost and witness memories fade," Solis said. "I know a case can go south after just a few months' delay, let alone years."
There also have to be questions in the jurors' minds about convicting a fellow Marine of an offense that occurred so long ago that the American public has largely forgotten about it, Solis said.
"There are a lot of factors stacked against the government," he said.
The trial remains important because of the need to resolve in court what happened, according to Solis.
"Justice always matters, and the members that hear this case are going to be the voice of the Marine Corps community, the dead Iraqis and the dead Marine."
Wuterich, a slight-framed Connecticut native, lives in Temecula where he's raising three daughters as a divorced dad.
If he's acquitted, he said, he hopes to leave the Marine Corps and get a job as a computer network specialist.
If he's convicted of any or all of the charges, the likelihood he would see much, if any, of the more-than-100-year sentence he could face is slim. In other recent cases involving Iraqi civilian slayings decided by juries at Camp Pendleton, most troops convicted were sentenced to little or no time behind bars.
Although he says he continues to feel bad for the families of the Iraqis who died, Wuterich maintains that what happened resulted from a legitimate response to being attacked.
"Those that follow the Haditha case closely, I think, started realizing that there was a bit more complexity to the incident than Marines running around shooting everything they saw," he said.
The 31-year-old Camp Pendleton Marine is scheduled to go on trial next week, accused of nine counts of voluntary manslaughter for his role in the death of 24 Iraqis, including some women and children, after a roadside bombing in the city of Haditha in 2005.
Wuterich, who has remained on active duty in the years since the incident, said he's anxious over the trial that starts just days after the last U.S. troops pull out of Iraq.
"I really don't want to go to court and drag everyone through this," he said in an email response to questions.
Despite his nervousness, he said he's confident that a jury of combat-experienced Marines will exonerate him.
"I am looking forward to being able to present my case and help everyone understand what happened that day, and why I'm not guilty of the charges I'm facing," he said.
Wuterich's case is the last among those of eight Marines charged with crimes at Haditha in what is the largest prosecution arising from the 9-year-old war.
His case is rooted in how he led his squad in the slayings after the Nov. 19, 2005, bombing that killed one Marine and injured two others.
The carnage at Haditha has been mired in controversy since it came to worldwide attention in 2006.
The number of Iraqi civilian deaths initially was reported by the Marine Corps as 15, not 24. There also was no mention that unarmed women and children had been killed.
'Disgusted'
When the actual number of deaths, the makeup of the victims and the way they died became widely known, it spurred a worldwide outcry about the way the U.S. was conducting the war.
It also prompted recriminations in Congress, including a statement by the late Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha that the Marines had "killed in cold blood" as a result of the stresses that combat troops were under in Iraq.
Some alleged that the Marine Corps was guilty of covering up the "massacre at Haditha."
The deaths at Haditha ultimately would garner more attention than any of the more than 110,000 other Iraqi civilians killed during the conflict.
The incident also would lead the Marine Corps to increase training in battlefield ethics and alter the rules of engagement to essentially require that troops be certain that anyone they shoot represents an imminent threat.
"I think the public was mortified and disgusted because of what was being thrown around the airwaves," Wuterich said of the reporting about Haditha in 2006. "Massacre, cover-up, scandal, etc. As more information came out, opinions started to change, although almost everyone confused the Hamdania case with the Haditha case."
In the Hamdania case, a different group of eight troops from Camp Pendleton was convicted of charges related to kidnapping and killing an Iraqi man and staging the scene to make it look as if he was planting a roadside bomb.
The two cases emerged almost simultaneously, but were in no way related.
'Absolutely not guilty'
Haditha's role in the legacy of the war was cemented on Dec. 21, 2006. On that day, Marine Corps prosecutors at Camp Pendleton announced they were charging four officers with crimes such as dereliction of duty and making false statements for failing to investigate the killings and allegedly lying to investigators.
They also charged four enlisted men, including Wuterich, with murder.
Critics of the prosecution continue to contend the cases were brought solely because of politics and to appease the Iraqi government.
In the years since the charges were filed, all of the accused except Wuterich have been exonerated through a variety of legal rulings.
The only punitive measure in the multimillion-dollar government prosecution was a finding against the battalion commander at Haditha, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani.
An inquiry board ruled that Chessani's failure to order a full-scale investigation into the killings was "substandard." That amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist that allowed Chessani to retire as a lieutenant colonel and assured him full retirement benefits.
Wuterich's jury for the three- to four-week trial that will unfold in a base courtroom will include enlisted men composing at least one-third of the panel.
His attorneys are two former Marine Corps legal officers, Neal Puckett and Haytham Faraj.
"Frank is absolutely not guilty of the offenses he's been charged with, and we know that the evidence will show that," said Puckett, who is widely known in military circles for his work defending accused troops.
In addition to manslaughter, Wuterich is charged with two counts of assault, three counts of failing to follow regulations by violating the rules of engagement, and four counts involving reckless conduct and advising one of his men to lie to investigators.
Wuterich, who was on his first war-zone deployment, is specifically accused of shooting or ordering the shooting of at least nine of the victims.
Most of those deaths occurred as the Marines stormed a series of homes as they searched for the attackers who planted the roadside bomb. At least one of the deaths he is charged with involves the shooting of five men who drove up in a car immediately after the bomb was detonated.
Investigators later said none of those men were armed, none appeared on any list of suspected insurgents and they had no apparent tie to the incident.
The prosecutors, Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan and Maj. Nicholas Gannon, are as experienced as the defense team. Each has had key roles in many of the other Haditha and Hamdania prosecutions.
The witness list has more than four dozen names on it, including all the original defendants. No Iraqis are expected to testify, but prosecutors may show videotaped interviews of survivors.
Fewer than a dozen people are listed as defense witnesses, and it's unclear if Wuterich will testify.
"We won't make that decision until near the end of the trial," Puckett said. "It will depend on whether we think the jury members need to hear information that they haven't been provided by the other witnesses."
Justice delayed?
The years that have passed since the incident can only benefit Wuterich, according to Gary Solis, an expert in military law and war crimes and a former Camp Pendleton prosecutor.
"In six years, a lot of tangible evidence can be lost and witness memories fade," Solis said. "I know a case can go south after just a few months' delay, let alone years."
There also have to be questions in the jurors' minds about convicting a fellow Marine of an offense that occurred so long ago that the American public has largely forgotten about it, Solis said.
"There are a lot of factors stacked against the government," he said.
The trial remains important because of the need to resolve in court what happened, according to Solis.
"Justice always matters, and the members that hear this case are going to be the voice of the Marine Corps community, the dead Iraqis and the dead Marine."
Wuterich, a slight-framed Connecticut native, lives in Temecula where he's raising three daughters as a divorced dad.
If he's acquitted, he said, he hopes to leave the Marine Corps and get a job as a computer network specialist.
If he's convicted of any or all of the charges, the likelihood he would see much, if any, of the more-than-100-year sentence he could face is slim. In other recent cases involving Iraqi civilian slayings decided by juries at Camp Pendleton, most troops convicted were sentenced to little or no time behind bars.
Although he says he continues to feel bad for the families of the Iraqis who died, Wuterich maintains that what happened resulted from a legitimate response to being attacked.
"Those that follow the Haditha case closely, I think, started realizing that there was a bit more complexity to the incident than Marines running around shooting everything they saw," he said.
Call staff writer Mark Walker at 951-676-4315, ext. 4080.
Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/state-and-regional/military-marine-anxious-as-last-haditha-trial-set-to-unfold/article_a7b70982-391d-5fc9-862f-0a9cdc3df150.html#ixzz1iEXLy7e8
